JSTEWARD1941-002 - primary ethnography
Ash Meadows Southern Paiute bullroarer
United States - Ash Meadows, Amargosa Valley, Nye County, Nevada - North America - Great Basin
Function not recorded
Source term: Bull-roarer
East of Death Valley, in the spring-fed meadows of the Amargosa, the bullroarer was a flat wooden slat swung on a thong from a short handle. Nothing further was set down of it here — not its name, not its occasion. Throughout this southern half of the Great Basin, wherever the question was put, the answer was that it was a plaything.
- Object
- Not described; the Great Basin form is a flat wooden slat swung on a cord from a short handle stick.
- Function
- Not recorded.
- Source
- Steward 1941, printed p. 307, element 1870 'Bull-roarer' + for column SM (SP-Ash). Informant dossiers, printed pp. 213-214: 'AH, half-Negro, half-Southern Paiute man; born ca. 1875 at Las Vegas; has lived mostly at Pahrump, Ash Meadows, and Las Vegas; now at Ash Meadows; intelligent, coöperative, speaks English well; Most facts for the SP-Ash list…
- Source location
Page references
printed p. 307, element 1870 (column SM); informants pp. 213-214
- Source confidence
- medium to high Ash Meadows, in the Amargosa Valley of Nye County, Nevada - the named survey locality and the couple's residence.